


Short Story Long

by Desiderii



Category: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-11
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-11 21:17:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/482983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desiderii/pseuds/Desiderii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The young Eshmi is invited on an official Dhemlan Court outing to Amdarh, an experience that shatters her world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I lost this in a computer move, so I'm archiving it here so it won't disappear next time. It's old and wobbly, but I'm fond of the characters.
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE: Just to reiterate the Archive Warning, this fic describes a rape, the fallout, and how these two individual characters deal with it. Neither of them are perfect or even know what the hell they're doing, so some of their thoughts and reactions are not necessarily healthy or do not reflect the reality of the situation.

“I’ll be back in less than week.” Xane told her, tapping her lightly under the chin with his knuckles. He gazed down as his sweetheart as she gave him an irritated snarl and tried to bite his hand. “It’ll be all right, Eshmi. You’re going on an outing with the Court women in Amdarh. How much more do you need?” 

He ran one hand comfortingly up and down her arm, giving her shoulder a squeeze before releasing her. She was gorgeous, to his mind. Her large aquiline nose was only accented by the proud way she held herself, though she was still shorter than he. Her hair, cut short, grew curly and wild in all directions. Xane could never tell what she used to hold it back from her eyes and had long ago concluded that she’d given it an order and that it was too afraid to cross her will that it would never get in the way. He’d seen her do the same with pot-boys in his mother’s kitchen. 

Eshmi grabbed the hand, her golden eyes nearly sparking as she bit out her words. “I need you with me.” Her fingers tightened on his hand until she was grinding the bones together. Xane gave her a pained face and tried to pry his hand free. He wouldn’t put it past her to sever the appendage because she was furious with him. “The Court invited me because of you. They barely even know who I am. I have no right to be rubbing elbows with these women! Some of them are even dark-jeweled and you know how well I do with aristos.” 

Her voice turned pleading at the end and Xane finally caught on to why she was so upset. “You won’t be alone, Eshmi-dear. You won’t.” He pulled her into a tight embrace as she freed his hand. “Don’t worry. I’m only a thought away and you know it. Your voice can reach me from anywhere.” He ran a soothing hand over her back as she nuzzled into his shoulder. 

“Your family’s well respected with the Court and your parents would never have let you go if they didn’t feel it was safe.” He could feel her warm breath through the fabric of his shirt and it kept him holding her tight as he felt her body relax. “And don’t give me anything about it not being your money to spend. You’ve been helping that Black Widow. She’s right ready to train you, and you know it.” 

After feeling her cheek move against him in a nod, Xane released her and she looked calmly up into his golden eyes, mirrors of his own. She looked composed and balanced, thank the Darkness, though a shadow haunted her eyes. “Eshmi? What is it?” 

“Maela, the Widow, saw a hint of my future.” Her clenched teeth made her strong jaw more apparent but when Xane reached out to her again she drew back. She ran her fingers furiously through her hair, standing it wildly on end. Perhaps he’d been wrong about what was bothering her. 

“If it’s the future, then there might be nothing you can do to avoid it, love. If you want to stay here, then stay here. I’m not forcing you to go to the capital. I, least of all, would even dream of doing such a thing to you.” He injected as much reassurance into his voice as he could, the teasing and appeasing tones bringing a smile to her face to match the one on his. The smile left him unprepared for her punch to his ribs. 

“There. That’s for leaving me when I need you.” Eshmi grinned as she spoke, watching him rub his side and give her a wary look. Her brilliant expression lit his heart as it did every time he was able to bring it about. Straightening, he drew her arm into the crook of his and took them for a walk between the flowers of the Court gardens. 

He’d known Eshmi since they were younger and he’d been allowed to run rampant over most of the district his family lived and worked in. With his mother the best cook in the district court he had enticed the youthful Eshmi to the kitchens for some of his mother’s baked goods. The rest was history; they’d been in each other’s pockets for centuries. He was a good-natured, mischievous, and irrepressibly mocking warlord and she a viciously-tempered, sometimes snarky, Hell-may-care witch with a dagger-sharp mind. 

They complimented each other, as his mother and half the Court servants had pointed out at one time or another. As time passed and it looked as if Xane was going to be accepted as a full member of Court and into the circles of the District Queen herself the aristo women were starting to take notice of the curly-haired commoner witch who wore Tigers-eye. That notice took the part of encouraging her to take opportunities that her family would never have dreamt of for her, such as giving her access to coven training. 

This Black Widow training she’d been getting, bits of knowledge and lore from the coven in their district was only sharpening her mind and her temper. He was quick on his feet and dodged most of her cutting comments, knowing that she meant only half of what she said. There was an understanding between the two of them born of long friendship. She knew he could take anything she threw at him, and it made her feel secure. He knew that she needed a shadow to throw her dreams into perspective. 

As the two of them walked together, Eshmi called greetings to the gardeners and the women on their way back from the washhouse. Xane lapsed into silence as she told him of her day, her week, and how she’d begun to use her embroidery and seamstress talents to assist the coven. His silent support had become a ritual they practiced whenever she was distressed. She preferred it to the fussing he was allowed to do when he declared official Escort privileges. 

It occurred to Xane only after their evening walk and he’d left her at the door of her parent’s house that she’d never revealed what she’d discovered of her future.


	2. Chapter 2

Grunting, Xane heaved another log onto the growing pile in the massive wagon. He and the other male members of the territory were spending their service days in cleaning up the scene of an uncontrolled weed burn that had run rampant through the local preserves. The Territory Queen had called in all of her time from the lower courts to help clear the devastation that a trick of the wind had wrought over a large chunk of land. 

He was hoping he’d spot one of the mythical Kindred supposedly lurking in these primeval forests, but so far he’d only seen a couple of deer and maybe birds. It’d been a rough five days. Only two more to go and he’d be able to head back to Valencay and Eshmi. He was looking forwards to her babble about the dresses she’d found and the talented needlework that had gone into it. The sights and sounds of a capital he’d never been to he would finally get to experience through her excited words and the shine in her eyes. 

He breath caught as he was about to heave another section of log onto the wagon. A scream ripped through is mind along what felt like a Tiger’s-Eye thread. That no-one else doubled over as he did with pain at the volume and fear in it let him know precisely who sent to him. 

*Eshmi?* He sent back as soon as he recovered his wits. Then, louder, *Eshmi?* 

*Xane!* He heard her call once, and heard the echo of her voice as it faded in his mind for the last time. After pleading with her on a thread to respond any way she could. He heard nothing more. He reported to his supervisor who let him leave in a panicked hurry for a city he’d never seen. Every time his heart caught in his throat from worry he’d drop from Opal winds and try and reach her again, with no answer. 

Even when he found the Court where they were staying in Amdarh and found the room where Eshmi lay curled, his queries mentally and verbally met with nothing. She’d shut herself off from him and there was nothing he could do beside stare at the shattered pendant lying on the dressing table. Her Jewel. 

When the questions started in his own mind of why he hadn’t been there for her, of why it had been her to be attacked and the myriad of other self-recriminations that stabbed at him as he tried to figure out where she’d gone in her own mind, he met with the same answer she’d given him since he’d heard her call. 

Silence.


	3. Chapter 3

Amdarh was everything Eshmi dreamed of and more. The scents of a real city washed over her and she breathed deeply the smell of unwashed bodies and horse manure. Coughing, she breathed out just as deeply and exchanged a rueful glance with Terra. She’d been partially exaggerating to Xane when she’d tried to explain the bad feeling she had about leaving her home. Eshmi did, at least, have someone to keep her company. Terra was a young aristo slightly out of fashion with her peers but with a gentle smile and a sense of humor that got her in trouble in Court. That sense of humor got her along famously with Eshmi. 

The pair of them had plans for a week out on the town, starting with a delicious massage at one of the houses designed to pamper women like them. Since they weren’t the only ones with the idea out of the five or six coaches chartered for the week by the Court they traveled together to their lodgings to change before they could relax properly. 

“Did you tell him, Eshmi?” Terra asked, twirling the long fall of her hair up into a loose knot so she could shrug out of her traveling gown. “You were so worried about what Maela told you.” 

“Augh. No. Will you help me with these buttons? How do you stand this style, it steals your breath. Literally.” Eshmi said, snarling as her fingers slipped off the tiny shell buttons that marched up the back of her bodice for the second time. Terra came over to help her, deft and delicate fingers releasing her friend a button at a time. “I can’t breathe in this top. Thank you.”

“No.” Eshmi continued after she caught her breath and went to sort through her luggage for something suitable to wear to a massage as she spoke, “I didn’t tell him what she said. I’m not entirely sure what she meant in the first place. You know tangled webs, they’re read differently by every person and the future is always mutable. Just because it said to be wary of sleeping in strange beds doesn’t mean, well it doesn’t mean anything. It could just mean bedbugs.” 

Shooting a glance over her shoulder, she was gratified to see Terra shiver in dismay at the mention of the little red insects that sometimes infested a traveler’s linens. “Don’t you dare speak of those menaces. I forbid it.” Her mighty and preemptory tone startled Eshmi into laughter and Terra flung a shoehorn at her friend’s mockery. 

When their mirth had died down to giggles, they finally pulled out dresses that seemed appropriate and helped each other into them. After they caught up with the other Court women, they seemed to mutually agree that they’d enjoy their time in Amdarh regardless of warnings. 

Every night Eshmi would tease Terra and tell her to ‘not let the bedbugs bite’ and every morning Eshmi stated in cheerful tone that she was bedbug free. They went to operas and shopping. Eshmi began to honestly enjoy herself as they partook of all the city had to offer. Window shopping showed her dresses she could barely imagine even with their physical manifestation on the other side of glass, and she found a new setting for her Birthright choker pendant cut in tiny metallic facets to set off the natural shine of her Jewel. She even found embroidery thread she could use on the dresses she bought to give them extra accent. 

They spent four days and nights with the group about the city and on the fifth day an outing was planned after a visit to the Territory Queen. It was another opera, a matinee that afternoon, the Tragic Tale of Telaiy and Mossgrain. Terra spoke animatedly to Eshmi nearly all morning while they waited with the lesser aristos for their audience with the Queen. 

“It’s supposed to be very romantic, Eshmi.” Terra had procured a fan somewhere in their shopping decorated with scenes of Amdarh from above. She used it to cool herself in the lingering autumn heat. “Telaiy is played by a distinctive actress from Shalador; she’s supposed to look very barbaric. Mossgrain, who’s supposed to be her lover, is played by one of the professionals from just this city. They make a marvelous couple and they’re supposed to be excellent singers. I hear this woman dances as well, isn’t that just delicious?” 

Eshmi nodded in excitement, an excitement soon doused by the awe she felt at being in the Court of their Territory Queen. At least she was sure her courtesies were in order and wasn’t expected to speak, Darkness forbid. She curtsied when told and smiled otherwise, earning a smile from the Queen’s Consort in return. The thrill his look gave her lasted until she and Terra pulled up in their coach for the opera. 

Still bubbling, she managed to get through the first half of the performance without referencing her program for the lyrics. At intermission, though, she noticed a young man she’d seen at court today trying to catch her eye. Nodding at Terra’s signal that she was going to find a restroom, Eshmi blushed at the young man’s obvious interest. He was older than she, he appeared to be old enough to have made his Offering, and had a sleek, nearly Hayllian, look to his features. His smile attracted her and she made her way to where he was standing by the bar. 

“Mother night, you look lovely this afternoon.” He took her hand and kissed it before tucking it under his arm and drawing her towards the auditorium once more. Eshmi was dazzled by his extravagantly polite demeanor. The sun, high in the sky though dimmed by curtains for the actors, caught at his hair and gave it a blue-black sheen. “I saw you earlier at my cousin’s court. How are you enjoying the performance?” 

“Your cousin?” Eshmi asked, “You mean the Queen?” 

He nodded, “Most of the aristos in Amdarh are related one way or another, through blood or marriage.” 

At a loss for a response, she gave him her most brilliant smile and answered his previous question. “Oh yes, it’s excellent. I can tell why I’ve heard so much about the lead actors.” Her hair was pinned back with delicate sprays of white flowers, accenting the flowers she’d sewn into her dress just that morning. She could tell he was admiring her. Admiring her openly. Flattered, she passed a fleeting thought for Xane but this man’s insistent attention neatly squashed her resistance. 

“Would you like something to drink? Wine perhaps?” She missed the glitter in his eyes as she glanced towards the bar. 

“Please.” Eshmi nodded, her mind fogged. She was feeling a little light-headed. “Or maybe water.” 

He clicked his tongue chidingly and there was a glass in her hand which she took a drink from. She sipped her wine and wondered if the opera had begun the second half. The man had captured her mind with his gentle words so that when he asked her if she wanted to leave with him and find a nice quiet place to be alone, she agreed without hesitation. In the blissful delight of being wanted in a strange town made her neglect to tell him she was a virgin. 

The two of them found his carriage, the inside draped with burgundy velvet that she ran her fingers across. He caught her hand, a gesture so familiar she looked up into his stranger’s face after her heart skipped a beat. Xane. Why was she letting this man whisk her away? The warning to beware of strange beds rose to her thoughts only to flee when the man’s lips met hers gently in a kiss. She would enjoy this. Regrets would come later. 

They reached what looked like a well-to-do boarding house near the center of Amdarh, somewhat near her own lodgings. With another kiss, this one hungrier than the last, the man led her from the carriage and up to a room at the top of the stairs. There they began their dance. Her blood burning, she could only moan when he whispered into her hair, “A virgin? Virgins are always sweet.”

He’d only begun the act when the door to the hall swung open and a horrified woman’s gasp issued from the doorway. “What is [i]that[/i] doing here?” rang in deep female voice of command. Eshmi was insensible and beginning to struggle with pain that being a virgin meant she had to deal with; she barely heard the woman through the strange doubling sensations she was experiencing. The man panted, but was otherwise silent. When the woman got no reply from the pair in bed she spat noisily into the hallway. “Get rid of it. We’ve an assassination to plan. I need you downstairs. Cael is waiting.” 

After the woman left, Eshmi heard the rich male voice of her partner once more in her ear through a haze of mixed pleasure and pain. “This was supposed to be good for both of us, my sweet. I’m afraid that you won’t enjoy it now.” With a swift thrust of his hips, he made her scream. He clapped a hand over her mouth but the scream continued, vibrating out over a thread to the young man she’d entwined her life with until now. Xane.

She heard a faint ‘Eshmi’ as she started to collapse into herself, feeling the power of her Jewels leak past her grasp, clawing for them as the world shattered around her. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to be broken like this. She hadn’t meant to betray him like this. She heard her name again, stronger. 

*Xane!* She shrieked as she lost her mental footing with the word betrayal. She’d never promised. She had promised, hadn’t she? With her power whispering away she felt as if she were tumbling into a deep hole, past the power she was able to contain and through a fearsome portal that flashed the entire spectrum. She’d betrayed him for a moment’s pleasure, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she? 

When she couldn’t find an answer, she kept asking the questions. The needle in her hand she didn’t remember bringing let her spell them out the hems of the gorgeous white dress she wore to the Opera. She could hear the echoes of Xane’s voice far over her head, pleading with her. She couldn’t tell if they were asking her why, why she’d decided to relinquish her life to a strange man or if they were begging her to tell what happened. She couldn’t do either. She didn’t understand what had happened. 

She shivered. All she knew is that she wasn’t the same as before. That this wasn’t supposed to happen. She hadn’t meant to betray his trust. Not that. When the words lifted from the edges of her white dress and the flowers in her hair whispered her questions back at her, she felt the tug that anyone trained in a coven would feel. The tug of familiarity. Eshmi was in the Twisted Kingdom. Why did she follow that strange man? Why? And why couldn’t she leave?


	4. Chapter 4

Xane stared at the slight figure twitching in the throes of a nightmare. The inn in Amdarh had given them a separate room until the court left for Valencay. Terra hovered behind Xane as he held Eshmi’s hand and worried. He called her name every so often, but couldn’t even tell if she heard him. For all her murmurings, it felt like there was nothing there. 

A darker jewel could have broken her without sex, or she could have broken herself in a backlash of her own power. The Healer who had spoken with him said that she’d been found wandering the theatre grounds shivering and fidgeting with her dress. She’d obviously had intercourse, the Healer had told him, and with what little residue left of the power used to entice her away it looked as is she hadn’t been entirely unwilling. A seduction yes, with power beyond hers, but even with her broken state there didn’t seem to have been force involved. No beating. No duress. Just sex. 

It hurt. Xane admitted it. He hadn’t expected her to find someone here she was willing to endure her Virgin Night for. They had been planning to make it an occasion soon, but – 

Xane held her hand, running his thumb over her fingers for hours even as Terra gave up and left to pack her restless friend’s scattered clothing. He kept up the soothing motion as Eshmi fidgeted with sleeve of her nightgown. While he sat and watched her fret, he tried to convince himself that she would never have abused his trust like this if she had known what she was doing. What he did know was that if she ever stepped back from the place in her mind where she fought demon-dead of her own creation that he would accept whatever she told him, even the flimsiest excuse if only to have her back. 

As night closed in on Amdarh, still Xane sat. Her tormented mind beckoned him until he reached out with his own to touch hers. 

Xane had little experience with the Twisted Kingdom, but he knew enough to realize that was where she was trapped. Nothing physical was keeping her from his arms. He struggled to keep from being drawn in, but his lack of experience made him curious. His ‘whys’ blazoned a path he could see down to a shadowed figure sewing frantically on scrap of fabric. With little care and less sense, Xane placed a foot on the pathway through a frightening landscape populated by city buildings that loomed and leered. Windows glared at him, an interloper, and figures moved behind pale white curtains edges with tiny flowers. 

“Eshmi?” He called quietly, unwilling to break the relative silence of the frightening place. Taking a step forward, the far distant shadow seemed to jump forward as his surroundings rippled, stretched and shrank. Within a single step he seemed to have traveled miles to reach his destination, the world welcoming him – fitting to his mind as he reached for the one trapped inside. Xane tried to rest a hand on the figure’s shoulder but she dropped suddenly into a pit that appeared at her feet. She didn’t fall, she just accompanied the ground when it descended, leaving him at the lip of a deep well calling her name. 

Only when it seemed the hole wasn’t getting any deeper did the figure look up. Eshmi stared at him from the bottom for a few moments before she stood in hope of rescue. She found her feet and flung herself towards him, trying to leap to catch the lip of the pit. Xane reached too late to help her, but it wouldn’t have mattered. She hit the wall, one moment stone which her head hit with a resounding crack the next moment pale bone-colored dirt that left milky dust on her face and crumbled as she slid to her knees. 

“Xane? Why did I go with him? He seemed so nice. Why did I go with him?” She sobbed into her hands, an expression that he’d never truly seen before. She’d comforted him but he’d never had to comfort her, not comfort tears. They ripped into him and tore out his beating core, stopping his heart and freezing his soul. Nothing she had ever done was worth this. He frantically prostrated himself on the lip of the pit and reached over the edge, straining to catch her hand. 

“Why did you go to him and not me?” Xane’s words horrified him, as they weren’t the ones he ever intended to let leave his lips. Instead of trying to catch the offered hand, Eshmi shrunk back and wailed, ripping at the cuff of her dress-sleeve nervously. 

“Why weren’t you there when I called?” The question dug into him. He couldn’t answer. He could have helped her if he’d been there. There were so many might-have-beens and could-have-beens that the air was thick with them, choking explanations that would have let her grab his hand. There was nothing to explain, she just had to trust him. 

Xane couldn’t stop asking his damning questions, questions that only drove in her lack of trust and misjudgment of the situation. Even as his lips screamed it wasn’t her fault the words formed into, “Why didn’t you tell me you needed this?” He was too inexperienced. He knew nothing about the Twisted Kingdom and trapped in her mind she was in control. A madcap, wild control where everything bent itself to her insecurities. 

The ‘whys’ pressed in thick and suddenly she was there, working furiously with her needle in a pool of white light on a rustic dirt floor like they’d teased each other of having. A rocking chair, rough hewn but sturdy, rocked gently as if recently abandoned by their side. They were both kneeling together as Eshmi swiftly and tearfully stitched the questions they had been flinging towards each other into the collar of his best dinner jacket. Thread caught the light and threw it back, making it too bright to look at as he detachedly admired the pool of her skirt and the shape of her bodice. 

This must have been what she was wearing, Xane decided distractedly as he whispered what he hoped would sound as reassurance. A foolish hope. “Why him and not me?” 

Her eyes darkened and her brows drew together as she lifted her needle and used the simplest of craft to snip the thread. She smoothed his collar and leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Why weren’t you there?” 

The words hit like a physical blow. It was only when his sight cleared to see a very ordinary room with Terra standing in the door looking frightened and Eshmi sitting up and rocking on the bed that Xane realized she’d hit him. Eshmi had physically hit him to draw him out of the Twisted Kingdom. The blow had knocked him off of his seat and left his ears ringing. It was only irony that left her rocking in time to the heartbeat he could hear pounding in his chest. 

“Eshmi.” The word came brokenly from his mouth as he went to wrap his arms around her rocking, shivering form. He was drained as if he’d been sparring with his Jewels all day, only a dim flicker of power remaining and him unable to dream of using it. He must have been fighting with power to bring her out in a place that warped power for its own needs. He could have broken himself trying to help her. He felt the bruise forming on his jaw and clung to her, giving into shivers himself. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Come back. Come back. I didn’t mean any of it. It’s not your fault. It was never your fault.”

Xane lapsed into a waking reverie, residual of his journey into her mind. Did she blame him? Was that what those words meant? Was she not returning to him because he wasn’t worthy of protecting her? His little witch was angry at him. So angry. The comforting edge of the Twisted Kingdom beckoned but he didn’t know how to reach for it. He might have tried regardless if he could know for certain he wouldn’t end up in Eshmi’s nightmares. He already knew he wouldn’t survive that. They rocked gently together, mirror expressions on their fretful faces. 

Eshmi’s aristo friend, Terra, watched from the door. Neither of the two on the bed saw the tears streaming down her face as she fought to stop crying.


	5. Chapter 5

“We can’t help her leave if she doesn’t want to come.” 

Xane nodded despondently. He’d recovered from his ill-conceived attempt to bring her out of it though the images still lingered. Nights he would wake from his sleep in a cold sweat to hear himself saying ‘why wasn’t I there?’ over and over. He had healed as far as he was able, but Eshmi still hadn’t. He had brought her to the coven where she had been soon to be apprenticed, knowing that they would have a better idea of how to heal her than he did. Her parents, more understanding than he, grieved for their daughter, the victim of chance. 

Maela, the old Black Widow that Eshmi had been studying with gave him a sympathetic smile. “She’s as healthy as she can get and she’s functioning. She’s just not fit to live outside of care, you understand that, Xane? I don’t think you should be the one to provide it, either. She wouldn’t want you to see her like this, if I know her at all.” Xane nodded again, not catching Maela’s frown at the unbalanced look on his face. 

“I know. I’ll… can you arrange it? I can give you whatever you need for it.” Xane was having a hard time understanding that despite the immense amount of power and talent behind the Dhemlan coven that if Eshmi didn’t want to leave, she wasn’t going to leave. The longer she lived within the Twisted Kingdom, the darker power and greater trust was going to be required to bring her out. And more skill. None of which Xane possessed. 

“We’ll arrange it. She’s speaking again, you know. Asking for her sewing supplies.” Maela halted at the look on Xane’s face, a stricken look that told of a fresh memory. A painful fresh memory. “Would you bring her supplies? She has a talent and I believe anything that grounds her in this reality will be all to the good.” 

Xane nodded, fingering the collar of his work-shirt as he left. He didn’t visit her that day. The bruise she’d given him had healed naturally before he managed to convince himself she couldn’t be angry enough not to see him. He’d learned more in the intervening time about the Twisted Kingdom and was ready to try his own plunge once more, if she’d let him. But, upon his arrival at her new residence when she realized he was there, she screeched and spat, keeping him at a distance. Getting closer was close onto dangerous as it put him in reach of her swinging fists. Any doubt that she was furious with him dissipated. 

Xane visited rarely. Unable to help, unable to even peek at her mind despite a greater experience with the Twisted Kingdom, he would sit and talk with her on the other side of the room. After years where he didn’t try to free her under his own power, she finally accepted his presence without the violent reaction. The one time he tried again when she was snuggled against his shoulder he ended up with a fat lip and a black eye and half a year where she wouldn’t let him near. 

A century passed and Xane visited every so often. Older, but not much wiser, Xane went on with his life as well as he was able. Nearly two centuries after the incident, Xane finally left Dhemlan to seek help outside of the territory and ultimately the realm. 

**

On the last visit, Xane came into the room, his eyes locked on Eshmi in horrid fascination. Her arms were dripping blood from hundreds of tiny red flowers embroidered directly into her flesh. Her joy at creation, of making things beautiful with needle and thread had led her to prettify herself. His horror magnified when he realized the design of the flowers was the same as those she wore in her hair that day, the same as the ones she had put on the dress in the Twisted Kingdom. His shocked, terrified gasp alerted the caretaker of the hospice who bustled in past him, scolding him for being in her way. 

Eshmi looked up at first the nurse then directly at him, eyes seeing nothing in this world. She sounded sad. “White flowers. They were supposed to be white. No matter what thread I start with they all come out crimson.” 

Xane couldn’t bring himself to visit after the flowers.


End file.
